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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24098029">Oh My Child</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheRiverStyx/pseuds/IntoTheRiverStyx'>IntoTheRiverStyx</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Requests/challenges/etc [18]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Arthurian Mythology</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Child Abuse, Dark, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:28:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,228</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24098029</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheRiverStyx/pseuds/IntoTheRiverStyx</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He is fifteen when his father hears about his heir's feat at the Good King's Midwinter Feast.</p>
<p>“If he can cut off a man's head in one swing,” his father informs him over breakfast one morning when the midwinter has passed but the air is even colder, somehow, “you're going to need to be able to do the same in order to earn yourself a seat at the same table he sits at.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Requests/challenges/etc [18]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673452</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Oh My Child</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He is fifteen when his father hears about his heir's feat at the Good King's Midwinter Feast.</p>
<p>“If he can cut off a man's head in one swing,” his father informs him over breakfast one morning when the midwinter has passed but the air is even colder, somehow, “you're going to need to be able to do the same in order to earn yourself a seat at the same table he sits at.”</p>
<p>He does not question this, has long since learned not to question his father's decisions, so he simply nods and waits to see if his mother has any words that may save him from his brother's fate.</p>
<p>He spares a glance at her and she is worn, exhausted, clearing having lost whatever fight she had put up to stop this.</p>
<p>“Yes, sir,” he finally tells his father, who is a King but not the Good King the entire land is talking about.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>He enters the training arena in his armor – still too big for him but he's told he'll grow into it before he leaves for Camelot. It feels more like a condition than a promise, but still: he has learned to fight around the problem.</p>
<p>“Take your armor off,” his father snaps at him, “If your brother can do it in his finery, you can do it without your armor.”</p>
<p>He simply nods and heads back to the armory. He does not call for assistance lest he manages to get that part wrong, too. When he finally manages to return, he is so cold he fears his father will notice his shaking. Instead, his father simply nods at the Marshall and leave his second son at the hands of a man whose name he has never even been told.</p>
<p>“Hmn,” the Marshall looks this second son over, “We have a long way to go.”</p>
<p>He knows this.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>They mount already-saddled horses and head out into the woods.</p>
<p>“You're going to practice on whatever you can find,” the Marshall tells him, “Might be a hare, might be a hart, might be a human.”</p>
<p>“Understood, sir,” he can only agree. Disagreement was beaten out of him at such a young age he's forgotten he ever used to be contrary.</p>
<p>They ride all day, his bones cold by the time he finds a lone hart, old but proud.</p>
<p>“Alright,” the Marshall says with a heavy sigh, “Your brother had an axe but you've brought a sword. No idea why you'd make this harder on yourself, but off you go.”</p>
<p>He wants to tell this nameless Marshall that he did not know what he would be doing, that he has never held an awe before in his life, that he does not think an axe would serve him well on the battlefield. Instead, he lowers his head, dismounts, and drawn his sword.</p>
<p>He does not sneak up on the hart, snow crunching with every footstep, and the animal takes off.</p>
<p>“What are you waiting for, boy!?” the Marshall snaps, “Go after it!”</p>
<p>He is on his horse again, sword still drawn, kicking the beast under him into a run. They catch up with the hart quickly; he takes a swing at a run and then pulls his horse back from the hart to avoid any kicks or bites. He only manages to clip the hart's neck, blood everywhere and a sound he has not heard before – never wishes to hear again – echoes in the otherwise silent woods.</p>
<p>The hart begins to run away, but falls, its blood quickly staining more and more of the white snow.</p>
<p>He realizes he must bring the head back to his father, so he dismounts and swings at the hart's neck again and again and again until the body and head are no longer attached. It takes many, many swings and there is blood sprayed everywhere – his face, his clothes, his hair, his soul, too he thinks.</p>
<p>The Marshall makes a disappointed sound as he lifts the head up by an antler.</p>
<p>It is time to head home.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>“You're nowhere near strong enough,” his father says as he is retreating back to his room, “Next time come home without so much fucking blood on you or don't come home at all.”</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>He sneaks out to the armory than night with only a single candle as his light.</p>
<p>“Where are you going?” his bastard younger brother asks.</p>
<p>He does not know why this brother is called a bastard and the rest or not, but like most things he has learned long ago to avoid questions that are likely only to be answered by a raised hand.</p>
<p>“Leave me be,” he tells this brother.</p>
<p>“Okay,” they are so close in age it surprises him often how much wiser the younger of them seems, “but I may just follow you.”</p>
<p>“You'll wake someone,” he challenges this brother.</p>
<p>“And you won't?” his brother returns the challenge.</p>
<p>He sighs, the fight lost before it had ever started. This, he fears, is where he will always be: weaker than his elder brother and daft when compared to his younger brothers.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>“I am to be able to cut someone's head off in one swing like our brother,” he finally says when they reach the armory. He is lighting a scattering of the wall torches before he blows out his candle.</p>
<p>“But why?” the younger says, “Everyone knows Gawain has sun magic and the feast happened in the middle of the day, to celebrate the light proper.”</p>
<p>“Because father wills it,” was the only answer he had to give. The younger shrugs, unbothered.</p>
<p>“How will you know you can do it?” the younger asks.</p>
<p>He only grimaces, and the younger understands: this is not a theoretical knowledge the King of the castle wants to see, like strategies for war, oh no. This skill will need to be demonstrated.</p>
<p>He picks an axe off the wall and tests its weight before deciding this is a two-handed weapon. He hopes this will give him more strength than he has.</p>
<p>He begins swinging it, testing his ability to move the weapon and also to stop it mid-swing without it taking him to the ground.</p>
<p>His younger brother watches, curious, but does not interrupt or ask any more questions.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>He is exhausted the next day when he shows up to the training arena in warmer clothes and an axe in his hands. His father grunts and leaves without a word.</p>
<p>“Well,” the Marshall looks him over like he'd seen the man look over dogs he was about to put down in the middle of a hunt, “at least this should be interesting.”</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>The first animal they find this time is a fox. He weeps as he rides after it, axe low to the ground, held almost precariously in one hand while he guides his horse with the other. When he thinks he can make contact with the animal, he swings the axe, angle awkward and elbow pulling in ways that make him yell in pain rather than victory. Even above the thundering of his beast's hooves, there is the telltale sound of flesh splitting. </p>
<p>He pulls his horse back around and finds the small, half-starved animal already dead. It only takes one swing this time, the axe handle long enough he avoids the splatter.</p>
<p>“Well,” the Marshall does not seem pleased, “at least he will let you return home tonight.”</p>
<p>He is left in the woods, then, with his horse and his kill. His stomach empties itself and he falls to his knees and weeps over the creature whose only sin was being there when he wanted so badly to be allowed to sleep inside.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>This happens again and again, morning after morning, their rides getting longer and longer as the animals become harder and harder to find.</p>
<p>No one bothers to explain to him that felling a moving target is so much more difficult than striking a large man who is standing still and waiting for death.</p>
<p>No one thinks to mention that there is a reason Cavalry riders favor the sword.</p>
<p>Like most things, he is expected to simply know how the universe works, to understand how to navigate the world he has found himself born into.</p>
<p>It somehow gets easier with time, physically, despite his not-yet-a-man body ill-prepared for the training. His bastard brother tags along the nights he is feeling well enough to practice in the middle of the night. Out of everyone in his father's castle, this brother seems to be the only other soul with the odds stacked against him. There is an uneasy bond forming between them in the low light of the armory, a bond that threatens to break anyone who tries to break the other brother.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>It is near spring again when it happens during his father's regular dealing with his subjects and their grieviences.</p>
<p>The farmer, it was proclaimed, had been caught stealing from his neighbors' grain stores. Furious, his neighbors brought him, bound, to the King who was not – would never be – the Good King, demanded justice.</p>
<p>“Well,” this King sounded bored, “what would you have me do with him?”</p>
<p>His neighbors called for death – something that was often called for in front of this King but rarely granted. This time was different.</p>
<p>“Very well,” this King decided, “I will have him taken care of.”</p>
<p>And so, there he is, holding a different, larger axe than the one he had been practicing with, this farmer, this thief, held down with the back of his neck exposed. This stranger is thinner than he should be and begging for his life, saying his grains had been broken into and he was only trying to survive the winter.</p>
<p>“They all try to bargain for their lives,” his father informs him, coldly, “Do not let the words of a doomed man sway your soul.”</p>
<p>He grips this new axe so tightly his knuckles turn white. This is not like the animals in the forest, running for their lives, protecting their necks and any other of their most vulnerable areas. This is a man, half-starved and unable to move, unable to protect himself.</p>
<p>“Do it,” his father snaps.</p>
<p>He has seen proper executioners do this before. He knows what it looks like, from the outside.</p>
<p>He takes a deep breath, forcing every thought he has ever had out of his head.</p>
<p>He lines up the swing by just barely touching the axe blade to this doomed stranger's neck before lifting it high over his neck and then swinging it back down as hard and fast as he can. Gravity helps, taking it down even faster than he had expected.</p>
<p>The stranger's head rolls away, blood splattering and draining and covering everything. He does not think he will ever be able to close his eyes without seeing the scene again.</p>
<p>“You did it,” his father's voice is unreadable, but he thinks there is a well-buried note of disbelief.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>He crawls into bed that night and does not cry or vomit as he expected to the moment he found himself alone again. He feels empty, soulless. Like the part of him that felt remorse died, too. It seems impossible, if not a bit rude, that a part of himself could die and leave the rest of him behind.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>“You may depart for Camelot when you wish,” his father informs him over breakfast the next morning.</p>
<p>“I will take Mordred as my squire,” he informs his father. He had not discussed this with his bastard-brother, but knows he will accept. This brother looks delighted and the youngest looks upset.</p>
<p>He does not worry for the youngest, though, for it is no secret he is their mother's favorite and she will not let her youngest son suffer at the hands of her husband the way the rest of her children have been allowed to.</p>
<p>“Very well,” his father does not hide the smile that tells him he willb e glad to get the stain of bastardry out of his castle.</p>
<p>“We leave today,” he announces, “and we ride hard.”</p>
<p>“It is a difficult ride, in the winter,” his mother cautions.</p>
<p>“We have endured harder and will endure harder again,” he dismisses the first sign of concern she has shown for him in years. He knows it is control, not worry, that makes her say these things.</p>
<p>“Mordred,” she tries the other one who is going to leave, “are you sure you want to take such a journey?”</p>
<p>“I will stand beside Agrivane and learn from him,” this brother's words are far more graceful.</p>
<p>Nobody mentions that he is not yet a Knight, and only Knights have squires. They all know what the second son and the bastard son are doing: they are running away.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>By the time they arrive in Camelot, their own eldest brother does not recognize them at first. </p>
<p>They have changed, hardened, as if spending the time away from the land that spat them out has chased whatever residual softness was left in their souls and an anger that would sustain them took its place.</p>
<p>He found no reason to try to replace it with anything else. After all, how Good could a King who saw his own nephew be trained to kill starving people as an equal to the nephew who survived a meeting with the gods truly be?</p>
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